


Luminate

by Ericine



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Comfort, Established Relationship, F/F, Family, Family Feels, Femslash, Long-Distance Relationship, Mothers and Daughters, Parenthood, Smut, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-04-01 04:12:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13990224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ericine/pseuds/Ericine
Summary: Philippa worries about Michael sometimes. Philippa's lover might know why.





	Luminate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Oparu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/gifts), [phantomunmasked](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomunmasked/gifts), [R_S_B](https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_S_B/gifts).



> This is the weirdest week that just keeps going. This is for the people who helped get me through it.
> 
> jāné del-am is a Farsi term of endearment that Philippa uses for Afsaneh.

When the door closes behind them, they embrace, kiss luxuriously, slowly. They don’t speak; speaking wastes too much time, but their hands move slowly, surely. They don’t have much time, but they’ve learned to not hurry this kind of thing.

Pippa’s hands wrap around Afsaneh, holding the other woman solidly to her chest even as Afsaneh reaches up and frees her hair. She’s let it out of the ponytail, but she’s pinned bits of it back so the wind wouldn’t get the better of her.

They’re not wearing much clothing; they’re on vacation, and what little they’re wearing falls away, almost melting, to the floor. She slides her hands down the familiar curves. She doesn’t have to open her eyes. She knows Afsaneh’s body as well as her own now, and when they step back together toward the bed, it’s like dancing.

Actually, it’s just like dancing. She’s pretty sure they’ve danced like this at least once before.

This bedroom isn’t theirs forever, but it’s theirs tonight. That’s alright. Pippa’s learned long ago that homes are people. She isn’t dependent, never has been a homebody, but she is grateful for the shelter like she is ducking under an overhang when it’s raining. If she feels like ducking. If she decides she doesn’t want to dance in the rain instead.

Touching Afsaneh is the best of both.  


Afsaneh sighs in her mouth, warm, cradles Pippa to her chest and Pippa leans back and they not-quite-fall onto the bed together. They never could choreograph this part quite right, and they’re hanging off the bed at a strange angle, but they take their time, weight shifting, warmth displacing. She’s undone Afsaneh’s hair, and she runs her fingers through the waves gently, careful to not pull too hard. It’s humid outside; Afsaneh’s hair has never liked that.

She likes Pippa’s hands on her scalp, though, and when she lifts herself to look at her, it’s like the most natural thing in the world.

“She’ll be alright, won’t she?”

They shift together to the head of the bed, pull back the covers, slip under and back into each other’s arms. Pippa hears the small click in the distance. “Michael? Oh yes, she needs some time alone every day. That’s just part of who she is.” She kisses Afsaneh, long, slow, savoring her mouth. “Like someone else I know.”

Afsaneh pulls her hair back and over one shoulder, looking down at her longtime lover. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” They kiss again, and Pippa’s breath hitches as Afsaneh drops her head to her neck, licking, nuzzling.

“I’ve only met the woman once. I just wanted to make sure,” she says, mouth somewhere around Pippa’s collarbone.

Her back is smooth and beautifully bare. Pippa slides her hands down, even as she leans back at the sensation. “You should do something together, just the two of you. Maybe I’ll sleep in tomorrow, go for a walk on the beach alone.”

Afsaneh shifts to her hip so that she can palm over Pippa’s breast, one of Pippa’s thighs between both of her own. “Would she like that?”

Pippa presses her lips together, keeps her moan at bay, lifts Afsaneh’s hand to her mouth and kisses it. “She wants to talk about something, but you know how it is.” She returns Afsaneh’s hand and strokes the other woman’s bottom lip with her thumb. Afsaneh captures it in her mouth, just briefly, then rubs her face into her hand. “I’m her captain. Maybe she won’t tell me.” Afsaneh quirks and eyebrow. “Shh, you know what I mean.”

Afsaneh kisses her again on the mouth, then the jaw, then the neck, then between her breasts. “I do.” She looks up at Pippa, then slides down to her stomach. “I didn’t always tell my mother everything either.”

“It’s not like that.” And Pippa  _ wants  _ her, she does. (She always does.) But Afsaneh slides her hand under her chin and looks up at her, head on her stomach, and Pippa’s thrown back to the Academy, when they were Just Friends, whispering truths to each other under the stars, their entire lives ahead of them. Pippa props herself up on both of her elbows and looks down at her. “What?“

“I just think it’s sweet, is all,” says Afsaneh, and she kisses her stomach so tenderly and Pippa can’t decide if she wants to flip her over and take her right now, or just reach down, pull her up, and wrap herself in her, never let her go.

“That there’s something she’s not telling me.”

Afsaneh hits her with one of her non-nonsense looks, the kind that she usually saves for her children. “That she cares for you so much.”

“That she can’t be honest with me.”

“Now, you know that’s not true.” Afsaneh can’t help it; she kisses Pippa’s stomach again, rubbing her cheek in just a little. “She’s always honest, to a fault, you say. So what’s happening now?”

Pippa swallows. “They wanted to offer her the  _ Kali _ .”

Afsaneh raises her eyebrows. “Respectable.”

“Not good enough.”

“But they thought she was good enough.”

“She’s better.”

“And you told her so.”

Pippa nods. “She turned it down. I don’t know if she resents me.”

“It was her decision to make. She knows she’s young for this kind of thing. They might have even expected her to turn it down. There will be other opportunities.”

“I don’t know everything, Afsaneh.”

“And you’re wondering if it was the right choice.” Afsaneh shifts back up, pulling Pippa to her in her arms. “That’s part of parenting.”

“She’s not mine.”

“And I seem to remember you being raised by a small village,” laughs Afsaneh, kissing her on the nose. “All of those people were necessary.”

Pippa sighs, crumpling just a little in Afsaneh’s arms - it feels good to be held - and Afsaneh holds her a little tighter. “You’re doing just fine.”

Pippa nods against her chest, then slides up just a little to kiss Afsaneh. “Thank you.”

Her hair is nowhere near the coiffed waves it was in this morning, when she’d woken up just a little early to make it look nice for everyone, but she’d braided it, a braid that had come apart under Afsaneh’s fingers, and the saltwater waves cling to their shape, spilling over her shoulders and through Afsaneh’s fingers. “I’ll talk to her anyway, of course. You’re an excellent judge of character.”

Pippa pulls away and raises an eyebrow. “You tell me I’m foolish to like everyone.”

“ _ Like _ everyone, yes. Maybe. But you think she’s extraordinary.”

“She has overcome much.”

It’s rare to have so much of  _ her _ to herself. This much skin, all of her attention, her hair and her voice and her hands and her mouth. She knows Afsaneh’s thinking the same thing she is, and they roll a little so that they’re on their sides, allowing just a little time to lie flush against each other in this way that they can rarely afford. “Like someone else I know?” Afsaneh smiles.

They kiss again, heated, until they’re feverish and breathless, and they’ve dragged out the conversation as much as they can, but they need to touch each other now.

“Pippa,” Afsaneh breathes over her mouth. Under the covers, by their hips, she locks her hand into hers.

“Together, then,” whispers Pippa. She presses her forehead to Afsaneh’s, and then, when their hands settle between each other’s legs, she bites back a moan and feels the edge of Afsaneh’s open mouth on her cheek.

They’re ready and familiar and  _ so close _ , and they haven’t done it like this in years, not since they had to steal a moment to themselves because it had been  _ much too long _ , and it was Kat’s Sickbay anyway, and they don’t  _ have  _ to do it like this now because the walls of this house are thick, and they didn’t do it like this last night, but there’s something to being this permanently in each other’s space. Pippa loves her ship and her life and her crew, but every once in a while, in the dark, under the stars, she entertains the idea of having Afsaneh like this every day, of knowing where she’s going back to at night.

Afsaneh (beautiful, both done and undone) clips Pippa’s cheekbone with her teeth when she comes, whimpering, and Pippa’s close herself, but Afsaneh’s hand stills, lost in the feeling.

“You have my heart, Afsaneh,” Pippa tells her, and Afsaneh closes her eyes and moans at the words, even as she’s still trembling around Pippa’s fingers.

Afsaneh stills, slides her hand back down into wetness, begins again, slow. Pippa takes a shuddering breath, slides quickly back into arousal. “You know you have anything you want.”

Pippa smiles, and when she arches, her perfect breasts bounce, just a little. “You can’t just say things like that.”

Afsaneh kisses her mouth, messy. “You think I’m afraid of what you’ll take?” She slips two fingers inside and hooks them. Pippa bites her lower lip. “I’ll say whatever I damn well want.” She slips her fingers in farther, lays her thumb over Pippa’s clit.

Pippa arches again, but she keeps her eyes open this time, stares at Afsaneh open-mouthed. “Take me, then.” She puts her hand over Afsaneh’s then, before she can slide out her hand, make love to her with her mouth. “Stay where I can see you.”

Afsaneh raises her free hand, plays with Pippa’s nipple between her fingers, slides her fingers in farther. Pippa hisses, almost yelps. “Like this?”

Pippa opens her mouth, grins. “ _ Yes _ , you  _ know _ \--” She jerks her hips, and Afsaneh curls her fingers, and Afsaneh lowers her forehead to hers and Pippa comes with a cry.

She rides out the orgasm, tries to say Afsaneh’s name and doesn’t quite succeed, but maybe she understand her anyway, because Afsaneh lowers her forehead to hers. “You’re so beautiful, so beautiful,” Afsaneh murmurs, kissing Pippa’s open, trembling mouth. “Every time, every way.”

Gently, when she’s ready, Pippa slips Afsaneh’s hand out of her, cleans it with her mouth. Afsaneh curls into her chest, hair spilling out onto the bed around them, letting her hand rest over her heart, and Pippa wraps her arms around her, memorizing her weight, her shape, her texture.

“I’ll take Michael for breakfast tomorrow,” Afsaneh tells her. Pippa arranges and rearranges her hair.

“Thank you, _ jāné del-am _ .”

Afsaneh kisses the top of Pippa’s breast in response. “You’re doing a wonderful job with her.” She taps her fingers to keep Pippa from responding right away. “Maybe you don’t think she’s yours, but maybe she wants to be.”

Pippa lets out a tired chuckle. “One happy family.”

Afsaneh always tells Pippa that she rises like the sun, but when Afsaneh lifts her head up and stares at her lover through cascading curls, Pippa feels like she’s watching the moon from her childhood - luminescent, resplendent. “Mmhm,” she murmurs, and kisses her, tender and warm, and then Pippa’s raising her hand into her hair, and Afsaneh’s slinging her leg over, and they’re melting together again.


End file.
